


plastic is nonrecyclable

by HomesickAlien



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-19 06:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11307237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomesickAlien/pseuds/HomesickAlien
Summary: I wanted to be human. Didn't you?





	plastic is nonrecyclable

 The sun set seems to glow much more vividly after a long day of practice. Maybe it’s the kids smiles, their desire to sleep winning a battle against their energetic natures, or where their hard work has slowly taken them that makes the sun against his skin all the warmer. He doesn’t know, doesn’t really care, because what really touches his heart is that he feels the sun’s warmth at all. His heart is beating, his ears are catching the sound of their laughter, and his own lips are curling into a smile as they take their time heading home.

 He’s felt sweat on his skin, tears on his face, and now the sun, too, embraces him. He can’t help but wonder, if this is what it means to be human. If they’re all so bad, so terrible as he once thought. That can’t possibly be the case, he himself is practically incapable of feeling hatred these days. But he hasn’t really felt a tinge of forgiveness, either.

 It’s an endless, dreary cycle he’s found himself in. He doesn’t belong with them, at their side, but he’s starting to lose his touch for acting out the role of a doll, as well. How truly cumbersome, this existence, it’s as though he’s ghosting his way through life entirely; it’s no way to live at all.

 Slowly, but surely. That’s always how it must be. _And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing._

 

 It’s not as much fun to be bitter alone. Itsuki Shuu knows this well, but he never changes, not at all. In fact, one would be hardpressed to find someone as stiff as Shuu is, but it’s not a bad quirk, either. If anything, it’s incredibly endearing.

 That’s simply the world as Nazuna sees it. He’s come to find in his years that there’s an infinite number of ways to see the world, to interpret this enigma he knows to be his mentor, but the past had not been so kind to him. He was stupid, he was immature, and so was Shuu. It felt like the rain piercing the window would never cease, that their happy days as a group together could never end. That rather than a calm before the storm, Shuu had already been a tornado tearing apart Nazuna’s little world.

 “There’s no need for you to keep practicing,” Shuu begins, with a gentle tone reserved solely for his precious Nito. His arms are crossed, brows furrowed, but he isn’t mad at all. It’s simply the way Shuu sits, stiff and unrelenting. Just like a serpent, the one who is the devil.

 Someday, Nazuna will be forced to wake from this false paradise, but on his toes drenched in crusty blood that binds him to his shoes, he longs to relish in this much a bit longer. He hasn’t a fear in a world, not one, he’s submitted himself to God long ago. The future doesn’t seem so cruel when he looks at it that way, their inevitable demise rings in his soft ears like cicadas in the summer.

 “You’re already perfect, after all, Nito.

 Nazuna is more than predisposed not to speak. There’s so much he wants to say, so many syllables he’s forgotten to pronounce, it’s not of his own will. It’s a trial, at least that’s how he’s reasoned it, and not one without righteousness. Shuu is best when he’s content, his soft smile reminding Nazuna they’re still kids, and all. It’s better like this, even if Nazuna has to resign his voice, it’s a small price to pay.

  _To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings..._

 “I have to… Practice…” Nazuna looks at Shuu through the corner of his eyes, before turning his back to him and stretching. He clears his throat before he goes on. “ _Miserere mei, Deus._ ” He bears his mistakes with empty headed pride.

 “I’m not mad,” Shuu says, in a tone that very much defines mad. Shuu isn’t self-aware enough to notice those things, but Nazuna almost smiles at the thought. Shuu places a hand on his hip and hums a familiar tune.

 Even if his voice is grating, he decides to sing along.

 

 The rain does subside.

 And they aren’t alone, anymore. There’s a mediator between them, Mika and his passive voice discussing what they should have for dinner, what they should watch before bed. Things that don’t apply to Nazuna, never will, but engage him nonetheless. He listens with his eyes just barely drawn open, head rested comfortably on Shuu’s shoulder, his breath warm on Shuu’s neck.

 He’s always tired, or he has been, at least, since meeting Shuu. It’s not like they work particularly hard, but rigidly. So rigidly, so down to the millisecond, it leaves no room for error. There isn’t enough oxygen in the air to keep from suffocating in Shuu’s ideal world, all Nito wants to do is sleep.

 When he sleeps, he doesn’t dream, it’s a black void thoughtless and immemorable. He wastes away the countless hours of the day to gather his thoughts and consider what little options he has. It’s not as though anyone wants to hear them, least of all Shuu.

 The suns beginning to set, at just the right angle to slice into his eyes. He presses his forehead into Shuu’s back, and it smells just like fresh grass in the garden of their next life. Like a place to go home to, somewhere comfortable and welcoming. Maybe Shuu was like that, too, at one point. Certainly, he still has a heart in him, Nazuna can hear it distinctly pounding against his rib.

  _A little sleep, a little slumber…_

 “I can walk.”

  _...A worthless person..._

 Nazuna says, but it’s light as the summer’s breeze. It startles Mika out of whatever he was saying, and he looks at his brother in-name only for a bit without knowing what to say. No one ever seems to know what to say, in Valkyrie. Shuu doesn’t let go. He readjusts Nazuna in his arms, huffing like it’s a hassle, but nothing for Nito is truly an issue in Shuu’s eyes.

 No, everyone is well aware, everything Shuu does is for Nito. He is like the angel that descended upon him from Heaven, the devil Shuu struck a deal with to make his dreams come true. For that, it is only natural he praise him, he spoil him, it’s all Shuu knows how to do to hold the strings of their relationship together.

 The sun was once so inviting. So warm, it embraced smiling children to go out and play, yet now it feels so searing. The truth is, even in Shuu’s kindest actions, there’s some kind of lesson he’d like to convey. He’s not just their teacher in the way of becoming an idol, but in enduring that cruel life, as well. And this is little more than a punishment for working too hard.

  _It is in vain to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows…_

 “I’ll carry you all the way home. And then I’ll carry you to your room, and set you down on your bed, and you’ll remain there until the morning comes when I carry you back to school.” Shuu cranes his neck to look Nazuna in the eyes. It’s not the way that Shuu looks at him, but his eyes that seem to swell with malice by simple nature. “That is the role of the precious doll. You understand that much, don’t you?”

 Nazuna is reluctant to respond, looking off to the side as if he can avoid God’s eyes. He wonders where it is his soul is drifting, if he’s nothing more than a lifeless doll. There must be something more to this life, that’s what he’s been told, after all. Yet he continues to resign to the fate of a corpse.

 “ _Pange lingua gloriosi…_ ” Nazuna hums the rest without speaking. Even his singing voice is starting to decay, that all that’s loved by Shuu is starting to fade away, it’s a fear he can’t express with words. Even without respect for Shuu, it’s impossible to truly hate him. There’s no liberation from this fate, that is how devotion is destined to be. “ _Be salvation, honor, blessing, might and endless majesty._ I can walk on my own two feet, Shuu.”

 

 They are like one universal mind. Ever changing, and ever evolving, and given space – _given time_ – they slowly begin to meld into one another. Perhaps it is because of that they still fail to speak to one another properly, still build their lives out of blocks of misunderstanding. Someday, Nazuna thinks, those grudges and fears will melt away, but right now it’s just nice to see it. See the light of Shuu’s bedroom window flicker, still working this late in the evening while Nazuna finds his way home. It’s like the light of the morning star giving him guidance, even know he refers back to the teachings of his mentor to lead his own kids.

 Nazuna smiles as he passes, thinking only warmly of the future. If they never talk again, that wouldn’t be a regret for him, but their future should be bright, too. Valkyrie’s star, up on a stage of thousands, that shouldn’t just be a past glory for Shuu to desperately long to relive. Nor an excuse to wallow away agonizingly, grieving for what could have been.

 Their fate was predetermined from the start, as it always is. They’d both known well God’s plan for them, the one that brought them together and tore them apart. They knew it well, and even better what defiance brings, that the Devil still lives with them is no surprise. But Nazuna lacks the capacity for hatred that his old friends let consume them.

 At least, this is how he thinks. It would just be nice to see Shuu smile, again.  So Nazuna smiles, as brightly as he can, because it’s the only way he knows how to attain that future.

**Author's Note:**

> slurp leave a comment shu and nazuna are gay and dating


End file.
